The year of 37

 This year was especially good to me.  Things I'm blessed with:

• I saw my family, and spent quality time with them
• No one (or nearly no one) got COVID seriously or otherwise. I'm thankful for this everyday
• I had a job through the pandemic, when many didn't.  
• I had people to talk with, had activities to do every week, even when shut in during lockdowns
  

This year was a blessing for me, not because of all the things I had, but because of the essentials that were put in place by me, my friends and family, and God.  It's those essentials that keep you going when you wonder how you'll face another day in a small four walls, and with no real change or variety to lighten the days.  And we all know, there were some long days.  

And I still managed to accomplish some of my goals this year:

• Goals completed: 10/37
• Number of goals affected by pandemic (Aka. impossible to complete): 15

  There are some that are half-completed, and some goals/plans changed so much in the year I was 37 that it was hard to know what was worth completing, and what was better to just leave to the side. I'm sure most people felt this way: What to do? What to bother completing?  Does getting out of bed count as high functioning?  Yes, probably.

But I did accomplish a few things off my list, some of which I'm proud of:

 

• I spent time with Vita, my grandmother. I love her dearly, and it was hard to schedule and see her safely
• I worked on my financial investments this year.  They aren't anything exceptional, but it is good I am at least attempting to plan for the future
  
• I read over 10 books (I'm somewhere on book 26-7), and often non-fiction books and books on hard subjects that challenged me.  White fragility was probably the most thought provoking that I read.
  
• I planned to run a 10K, but since it got cancelled, I can at least say I run about 5-10K every week at a leisurely pace (yet another activity cancelled by the pandemic last year).
• I managed to do fun things with friends, even though most events and plans were cancelled

 37 was not exactly what I thought it would be. But overall, I'm happy with how the year went. A lot of good things happened, some not-so-good things, and some things that were surprises.

 

More than anything, I'm trying to come to terms with the fact that, yes, I am an adult, and I'm going to have to make adult decisions, some of which will be hard, and experience adult things, some of which will be difficult.  But life is a wide road, and though some experience have been shut off for all of us in the last two years, I still have a hope for a better future for younger generations. 

Practicing Thistles

 

Mental Health in the Pandemic

 This week I had a hard time at work...I think I've learned that I even I have limits, and that breaks, real breaks without thinking about work, are important.

Waiting for life to happen, waiting for things to be better in life is hard, sometimes necessary. But one thing that isn't necessary is suffering because some small infraction at work has sent you over the edge. (I definitely went over the edge and back, and then back again!)

My life, and my work, compared the countless other people working through their issues, healthcare workers especially, are really struggling.  I'm struggling in part because this feels like such a time of helplessness. I feel helpless at times.  It's not a great feeling.  Perhaps it is just part of growing older...I'm not sure.

I'm taking next week off for my birthday.  I'm hoping I can go back to work with a fresh mind and a fresh start.

Thinking about Afghanistan

 

I've been saying prayers for the men, women and children of Afghanistan lately.  I just want to say that what is happening to you, to your country, is not fair.  The collapse of normalcy, of peace, of hope for the future is not your fault, and all of you deserve a brighter future.

Random doodle

 

Canada Day 2021

 

 

Here are some amazing facts about Canada:

• We created the Space Arm
• Canada has the longest highway in the world
• Superman was co-created by a Canada, Joe Shuster

 

Some not so amazing facts about Canada:

 

•  There are nearly a thousand young children's dead bodies that have been found at residential school sites. See here for a timeline of Canada's failure to support Indigenous families. 

 

The gap I feel inside between what educators, people of the Catholic Church, anybody, should have done something at a policy level to keep these kids safe.  These kids were not safe, kids in the foster system, many which are Indigenous, are not safe.  I'm even more irritated at the Pope's lack of initial understanding of the issue (or his social media team) and the lack of understanding from the Canadian Catholic bishops, who spoke about persecution of the Church because of these findings, because some people were maybe a little upset that people in their families were reported missing when maybe they just died and no one told them.   

The failure on so many levels of church and state to acknowledge the harms committed, is hard to understand, almost as hard to understand that there are children's graves in large numbers connected to a place where kids were supposed to be given food, shelter and education.  And definitely not culturally appropriate education.  Definitely not education by people that young people could trust.  

Racism is not going away.  Bad faith actors are not going away. (The latest London, ON incident as a prime example). There have to be better systems put in place to protect the vulnerable.  Especially kids. Especially Indigenous kids.

An elegy for a friend

 Around this time last year I found out I had lost a friend I thought dearly of, in a tragic accident.  I don't know how to express in words what Stephanie meant to me, but I'll bring up a few memories.

 

 

 

 

I was never a big fan of the CNE until Stephanie invited me to go, and to try out all the weird foods.  Both her and I connected over a shared love of strange deep friend foods, and good company.  We enjoyed just walking around events like this and taking in the atmosphere.  We chatted about lots of things, but mostly we were just excited for this chapter in our lives.

We had a friend group that was held together by her...she organized get-togethers, and we constantly had fun hanging out as young professionals trying to make it in Toronto.  After Stephanie left Toronto, the three of us saw each other once and a while, but she was definitely a 'glue' between a couple different kinds of people.

 

 

 

Also, pickles.  We laughed about pickles on a stick. I think they were around $6, but as cheap and dumb as we were, we bought them anyways...and laughed.

There's so many more memories that are here before camera photos and unlimited online photos were a thing.  Some highlights:

1. Us as recent graduates, gossiping and calling various classmates out for their terrible choices in men, jobs and other things we thought we knew better about, when we were making all the same mistakes (We enjoyed our feelings of superiority, though, and were very supportive of both of us and our complexes)
   
2. Us talking crap about the PR industry in Toronto and some of our horrible bosses and their terrible complexes. 
3. Her being supportive of me as a freelancer at the start of my career.  She was my biggest professional cheerleader in many ways
4. Her trying to get me hired to Sun Life so we could work together again
5. Her constantly reaching out to come to Waterloo so we could all hang together.  I'm sorry I was so broke I couldn't afford to go.  But I was, and I regret not coming to see you in Waterloo properly.  I wish I had found a way to relight our connection.
6. Me coming to your basement apartment in High Park to cook you what I promised was an authentic Italian dinner: instead, I added too much oil and burnt the bacon and really it was quite disgusting.  You were nice about it, though.
   
7. Us walking around Nuit Blanche at 3 in the morning, freezing, sitting outside Nathan Phillips Square, discussing where our lives would go, while listening to strange Canadian bands and watching 'art' pass us by, and laughing at what other people called art.  It will be forever ingrained in my memory.
   

 

 

More than anything, when I found out what happened, I was angry and upset that the world took away someone who was always smiling, so full of life and laughter.  It was unfair what happened to you.  I still can't believe it, in some ways.

 

I hope you're in heaven smiling down on all those who clearly loved you.  You're definitely missed, S.

 

Self-betterment and the pandemic

I had a lot of time this winter to think about things to change, things to improve, ways to focus on self-betterment.

2020 I saw a lot of people looking at this time, as an opportunity for growth.

I do wonder if those people grew any, or if they were just telling people what they were working on day-to-day.

Self betterment and improvement are valuable, intrinsic goals for most people.  For some people, they can't look at those goals directly, it's better for those things to be dreams. Because realizing your dreams and making them real, requires real work.  And real work amidst job loss, isolation and a sense of hopelessness for some people is really hard.

In Atomic Habits, James Clear puts this in a way that is simple to understand: we are motivated by our environment.  To put in scientific terms of agricultural progress, the very nature of continents changed the way human societies grew and at what rate:

When agriculture began to spread around the globe, farmers had an easier time expanding along east-west routes than along north-south ones. This is because locations along the same latitude generally share similar climates, amounts of sunlight and rainfall, and changes in season. These factors allowed farmers in Europe and Asia to domesticate a few crops and grow them along the entire stretch of land from France to China. (Motivation is Overvalued. Environment Often Matters More.)

When we think about our activities, and our goals and habits, certain things align themselves naturally. Some activities have natural barriers determined by our environment.  If my goal is to run a successful restaurant, I'm bound by my location, and location matters ever so much in this time of pandemic.  Being a successful photographer or teacher is pretty hard when it's an in-person service.

Conversely, some activities are better suited to online learning or environments.  But the one thing I've learned, as I have read self-help, self reflected on social progress and my place in it, is that our environment determines what motivates us, and also what we are blind to.

I think when this is over, we will see bursts of productivity from people in ways we never expected.  Because just the idea that everyone believes an event has ended means a new psychological environment for us all.

 

Holidays

 You know, there's something special about a season that revolves around the idea of giving and generosity.  

Of course, this often culminates as all of the glitz and glamour of gifts, certain kinds of holiday events, and suggesting that there is a 'right way to do Christmas.'

 However, I think most of us know this year will be different, and the stress of it all is probably not going to serve everyone so well.  It's hard to ask people to be alone...it's even harder to ask people to be alone during a time where the tradition is to be together, in the warmth of laughter and good cheer.  And slogans of being together while being apart ring hollow to those of us closer to the edge of the abyss.

We're not built to be alone, to be isolated. Humans were made to be together. We just want to be able to walk past another person in a grocery aisle without wondering if we are following the correct set of arrows up or down the aisles. And none of us have the patience required as we are constantly being called to task for not being good enough for other's people's standards.  We are weak that way.

A time like Christmas is not about being enough.  Indeed, if the message of Christianity is that the king of kings was not good for the inside of an inn, but only good enough for a rather drafty barn, then we all must know the feeling of that cold right now.  The gifts we are given at this time are strange, and perhaps not the gifts or celebrations we were expecting.

I hope that you take time this season to look inward for peace, for the stillness of a winter's night, for a warm heart that loves those around you.  My goal this season is not to replicate Christmases of times past, but to hope, and to hope for the betterment of those who are still here after such a difficult year.  

Hard Candy Christmas

On a dark night,
Inflamed by love-longing -
O exquisite risk! -
Undetected I slipped away.
My house, at last, grown still.
Secure in the darkness,
I climbed the secret ladder in disguise -
O exquisite risk! -
Concealed by the darkness.
My house, at last, grown still.

That sweet night: a secret.
Nobody saw me;
I did not see a thing.
No other light, no other guide
Than the one burning in my heart.

This light led the way
More clearly than the risen sun
To where he was waiting for me

- The one I knew so intimately -
In a place where no one could find us.

O night, that guided me!
O night, sweeter than sunrise!
O night, that joined lover with Beloved!
Lover transformed in Beloved!
Upon my blossoming breast,
Which I cultivated just for him,
He drifted into sleep,
And while I caressed him,
A cedar breeze touched the air.

Wind blew down from the tower,
Parting the locks of his hair.
With his gentle hand
He wounded my neck
And all my senses were suspended.

I lost myself. Forgot myself.
I lay my face against the Beloved's face.
Everything fell away and I left myself behind,
Abandoning my cares
Among the lilies, forgotten.”
― Saint John of the Cross, Dark Night of the Soul 

 

Christmas is a season that North America tries to turn the beginning of winter season into something positive, to bring people together, to organize social events and seasonal events around togetherness, family, and generosity. 

But for many, it will be hard to be generous this year.  It will be hard to be together. It will hard. It will be dark, and it will be cold.

 In the Dark Night of the Soul, Saint John of the Cross explains in simple terms why being good is hard. It's a relatively small pamphlet, perhaps a 120 pages...you can read the whole thing here. It's all part of a larger body of work...and really deals with the righting of self, with the acceptance of certain internal truths, both psychological and spiritual.

Dark does not mean the end...it does not mean impossible. Indeed, for this author, it means understanding that at the very darkest time is when dawn breaks. And when dawn breaks, it will be a break towards love, not the terror of seeing.

This too, shall pass.  It is a season, not a finality. And though dark times are hard, the good times are sure to appear, and grace is possible, even in small ways.

Tis the season.

Halloween 2020

 

 

 

Put out some Halloween decorations this year...I guess in 2020 I'm turning into one of those people that decorate their lawns.

 

 

Julie made this terrifying scarecrow. We had a lot of fun putting it together.

 

 

Seriously the head of this thing gave me the heebie jeebies!

 

 

 

 

I also made some Halloween cookies. I learned 2 things: 1) I hate making sugar cookies, and don't particularly love the taste of them 2) Coconut oil is not a good substitute for shortening unless you want icing that tastes very strongly of coconut.

 

 

I forced our weekly movie group to watch a mildly scary vampire movie for Halloween.  Needless to say, it was not a hit. But I liked it, I thought it was a bit fun.

 

We also had 3 trick-or-treaters this year. I think Julie was hoping there was way more. I'm surprised we got that many with COVID restrictions. (Kids were able to gather the candy from a sanitized bowl at a distance.)  

Overall, Halloween was fun this year, I saw some cool costumes, but I did miss dressing up myself.  Unfortunately, no reason to dress up this year.  But I suppose I saved some money on costumes, so there is that, I guess! :) 

 

Some photos from Thanksgiving

 

 

 

 

Hanging out with my new roommates.  We had a very nice meal I cooked, and help from everybody else.

 

 

 

 

I made pork tenderloin, mashed potatoes, a butternut squash and spinach casserole and veggies.  I also made a mushroom gravy!

 

 

 

I have a lot to be thankful for this year,  but most of all, just happy I have a job right now, a roof over my head, and some regularity to how things are.  This was a great evening and very nice memory for 2020.

Birthday photos and moments with Alexia and Alex

 I had a fun birthday this year.  Even though everything was socially distanced and spaced out, I made the best of it with a few different activities.

 

 

Alex and I finally did a boat cruise...and it was really fun!  I snuck snacks on board and some drinks, and it was lovely to be out on the water in the fresh air.

 

 

Had a nice time meeting up with a few friends on a few different occasions. A little different than the giant event I usually organize.

 

 

Alexia and I went and got giant donuts from Whitby. Seriously, they were huge!  Also too big to finish, really. :(

 

 

We also went and got a really nice veggie lunch.  I ordered falafel...why did I do it, I don't know. I had forgotten...I don't even like falafel, and this was no exception. 

 

 

In the afternoon we went for a really great walk/hike. The usual COVID problems of trying to find either a garbage can or an open bathroom was issue as always.

Happy birthday, 2020

 

Another year, another birthday.  Some achievements:

• I lost 30 pounds from Jan-April, and I've managed to keep most of it off, even with less activity through COVID-19
• I've started doing more sketching and drawing again, which has been really enjoyable for me
• I submitted writing to a Netflix writing competition
• I applied for a board position...I didn't get it, but proud of myself for at least trying
• I've started a new job position at work since January, it's been a good learning experience
• I'm writing more letters and connecting with old friends again that I've lost touch with
• I grew out my hair...it was an experience.  Never again!! Haha.
  

 

I've had this Kylie Minogue song running through my head this year during my birthday week.  Some of the lyrics really appeal to me, the gist of it being to enjoy life and turn life into action that makes you happy/fulfilled.  And happiness doesn't mean always feeling pleasurable about certain problems or issues.  A state of living well, or a life well-lived is a problem of morality for the average person, the average person's philosophical problem.  

There are many unsatisfactory answers to this problem (Sartre, Hegel, Aristotle, silly nihilists) but there are also very thoughtful, and well placed answers.  Heidegger had a lot to say about living authentically in the world. Being in the world, and understanding our 'heritage,' in other words, discovery of the self in conjuction with those that have come before, and discovery of the value (facticity) of the world itself.  We are meant to be guardians of the world as is.

How can we be people in the world, in connection with others, and create a meaningful life?

I think at the end of the day, our intentions are what matter. We are here for a limited time.  Regardless of our energy, time, money, opportunities, the direction we are pointed in the world, will take us to places of value, or not.

There are a lot of philosophical answers to intentions, but simple to say, if your so-called intentions don't lead to action, they aren't intentions.  They are simply wishes. I wish I had more hair, was taller, was skinnier, was wealthier, etc. but these things are just dreams of dreams.  Intentionality means to be real in the world we live in, with a hope for real change.

 Real change is possible in the world, I believe it, and I believe it for most of us, achievable. Though this year is a strange one, and 2021 will probably be stranger still, I'm hopeful for the future, for the future generations coming up into the world.  

Happy birthday to me.  

The miserable state of online education

 

 Modern art and writing and always been preoccupied with the link between technology, man's attempt to make machines intelligent, and 'how society should be.'  Whether you call that education, political systems, etc. these topics seem to always intersect and produce interesting ideas and thought provoking discussions. Below are some thought-provoking novels that talk about AI being a real focus on human error and machine error:

• 1984
• Brave New World
• Oryx and Crake
• The Scorpion Rules
• Feed
• Fahrenheit 451 
• The Giver
  

 

Modern writers today are constantly working to unearth the human problems we will face in the future.  Some of them are happening now, such as test algorithms in Britain:

"To determine each student’s results, the U.K. decided to use an algorithm that looked at their mock exam results, as well as their school’s track record in the exams. Lawmakers said the software would give students a “fairer” result after concluding teachers could potentially try to inflate their pupil’s grades.

But the model ended up favoring students from private schools and affluent areas, leaving high-achievers from free, state-schools disproportionately affected. Many students have had their university places revoked as a result of the downgraded exam results, and there have been protests as a result."

One of the fastest growing technology sectors is education. But policy, ethics, and the general public have not caught up with where technology is heading.

Technology to educate is a double-edged sword. It can aid teaching, and it can remove the humanity involved in learning, which is the subject of many a page-turning novel. If you ever read Victor Frankl's book Man's Search for Meaning, he talks about central themes of how they survived in what could only be considered the most inhumane, and the most wrong kind of circumstances for innocent people.1) Purposeful work 2) Love 3) Courage to face difficulty.  Educational systems that have successful students are built around similar concepts. Most teachers I know truly have a calling to caring for children and wanting to see them grow.  They also benefit, it's a good cycle.

The reason that algorithms and education are so problematic when put together is because they remove the human capacity for free will in most cases. There are cases where algorithms are very helpful, and they remove the common logical errors and fallacies that humans might commit (favoritism, etc.) and focus on what are the results. But algorithms can remove the purposeful work and the friction required to achieve for students. And some students thrive on that friction to push them to succeed.

Most professional, reputable organizations of learning are interested in one thing: learning outcomes. This is what educational specialists of all walks of life want: for the student the learn and to thrive as part of that learning. And with that, comes the work required to learn. But policy that puts technology first, things that remove helpful friction, are really not helpful at all, but a sense of false charity to a student. And especially marginalized students, technology rarely helps them, but helps those who were already fine without the help, it's a sense of false charity.

“ False charity constrains the fearful and subdued, the "rejects of life," to extend their trembling hands. True generosity lies in striving so that these hands--whether of individuals or entire peoples--need be extended less and less in supplication, so that more and more they become human hands which work and, working, transform the world.”
― Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed

 It is unhelpful to use technology to reform education. Instead, we must ask those in power to reform educational systems to meet the realities and needs of students (and by extension, teachers). Yes, perhaps someday an AI teacher will be a good as a real one.  But the principles and ethics of learning, teaching and discovery are not something we can ever hand over to AI overlords. There is no virtue in that, and no humanity.  We will still have parents, families (of some kind) communities that will help raise us, help us learn. We will still need each other, and not just a cold monitor. 

I do  think a lot of these technological advances are good things. Triplicate papers, typewriters, the quill pen,  good riddance to writing things this way for educational purposes; there are better ways. Computing power has improved the power of human knowledge and its applications, but it has yet to improve the decisions we make when interacting with each other.

Educational systems, as we will see in September, are a type of normalcy that we heavily rely on.  Indeed, we will see just how heavily we rely on these educational systems and their technological counterparts in the coming years.

August 22, 1920, is Ray Bradbury's birthday. I'm sure it's no coincidence that the popularity of dystopian fiction is rising. Someday, people of the future may say we lived it.

Sartre and Camus: Freedom and Justice

Albert Camus

     

Jean-Paul Sartre

 

 

Camus and Sartre: two figures could not be so different in history, and yet talk about the same subject, existentialism, in a time where the Western world hungered for an answer to the question 'what is the meaning of the life?' (The question of 'what is meaning at all' would come from the German philosophers and poets)

I read a very excellent article called 'How Camus and Sartre Split on the question of How to Be Free' and it reminded, in one phrase, how the problems of the past are once again our problems:

In October 1951, Camus published The Rebel. In it, he gave voice to a roughly drawn ‘philosophy of revolt’. This wasn’t a philosophical system per se, but an amalgamation of philosophical and political ideas: every human is free, but freedom itself is relative; one must embrace limits, moderation, ‘calculated risk’; absolutes are anti-human. Most of all, Camus condemned revolutionary violence. Violence might be used in extreme circumstances (he supported the French war effort, after all) but the use of revolutionary violence to nudge history in the direction you desire is utopian, absolutist, and a betrayal of yourself.

 

For Sartre,  revolution required much more than what might be a middle way by Camus.  Sartre was a radical of belief, and I'm not sure it served him well.

Sartre read The Rebel with disgust. As far as he was concerned, it was possible to achieve perfect justice and freedom – that described the achievement of communism. Under capitalism, and in poverty, workers could not be free. Their options were unpalatable and inhumane: to work a pitiless and alienating job, or to die. But by removing the oppressors and broadly returning autonomy to the workers, communism allows each individual to live without material want, and therefore to choose how best they can realise themselves. This makes them free, and through this unbending equality, it is also just.

It's troubling that the Sartre's answer to radical freedom in the west was communism. Radical freedom, by its nature, is a burden.  A world with burdens cannot have a utopian ideal: they go together like oil and water.

France has had many kinds of revolutions, many of them bloody, some of them odd, and the one pivotal idea every citizen of Western belief has burned in them, the inalienable rights of humankind.  It's all very common sense today...that no one is really so much better than everyone else.  But at the time it was such a startling way of thinking.

Today, in the light of yellow vests, BLM, Proud Boys, Antifa, and COVID-19, there's so much confusion, real social confusion, about the way forward.  And it's interesting because there are radical thinkers that think communism could definitely work for America, or that abolishing capitalism, or revisionism of whole monetary debt systems will solve social problems. 

The reality is much simpler than that.  Ethics and moral systems that value people's inalienable rights and freedoms need to be present.  And right now, instead of a world of capitalism vs communism, the debate between Sartre and Camus reminds me that revolution as violence will never be the final answer.  If it was, there would be no verse of turning swords into plowshares...we would live on swords and fire alone.